I liked [the post Keep Feeling Fascination] and it made me remember the words I heard from Michael Weber once, how we consider people we are performing magic for : 1- Audi ence  ( From Latin for, to listen ) 2- Spec tator ( From Latin Spectare, to look at) 3- PARTICIPANT ( From Latin Participatio, to share ) ( helpers) I try to keep this words in minds and go for the latter and I believe that your post was also sharing the same thing.—KQ Yeah, I think I was hitting on a similar idea. Although in practice I tend to use all of these in my write-ups. “Audience” for when I’m talking about ..read more

The eclipse performance went over spectacularly. We were gathered at my friend’s lake house on the northern border of New York state. I spun the top on my palm a few times leading up to the event, as if I was trying to get the right “feel” for it. In reality, I was trying to gauge the interest and make sure the moment was going to be right. The first time I spun it, one of my friends asked me about it, and I said something about how there’s supposed to be a moment during or around the eclipse that affects spinning objects strangely. Had he just said, “Oh,” and turned around, I probably wouldn ..read more

Jonathan T. writes: If you haven't seen already, thought you'd find this interesting potential premise fodder. It’s a good idea. Let’s talk about crafting the idea so it builds in a satisfying and surprising way. I would probably do the standard 37 force on them first. Then explain it and show them parts of this video. “But it gets weirder…,” Then I would do something that forces a three and a seven from a group of playing cards or number cards. So, something like the Gemini Twins force. This twists the concept in a small but significant way. We’re still using numbers. And we’re still hit ..read more

I’m trying to think the best way to introduce this idea to you. If I tell you how much I’ve been getting out of this idea recently, your expectations are going to be raised and when you read it you’ll say, “Huh? That’s it?” But if I don’t hype it up for you somewhat, I think you’ll underestimate the idea. It’s definitely a small idea. It’s possibly something that other people are already doing without thinking too much about it. But I just stumbled on it myself recently. It’s a Spont. What’s a Spont? A Spont is a concept I wrote about a few weeks ago. At that time, Spont was a placeholder name ..read more

This is an idea from Sam “Stuck In the Middle With You by Stealers” Wheeler. He wrote me about it after my Beta Test Performance Style post last year. He offered it up as another “ego saving” performance style. It’s another way to take the pressure off when you perform. This is for when you have a sleight-of-hand-based routine that you’re not 100% comfortable with yet. Here it is, in his words: I read your post today about The Beta Test Performance Style.  I like the concept a lot. As someone who struggles with feeling guilty about performing I can see this being very useful, I can put th ..read more

I’m taking this email slightly out of context. I’m intepreting the question more generally than it was asked. The basic idea is how to approach people for help when you’re testing out new tricks or techniques. If I'm to have a friend or three selected especially for this task provide discrete and prompted feedback on individual magic tricks, what excuse do you think I should use to avoid the real reason? I'm thinking that I'll just say that I'm part of a secret society that values actual feedback […] and I've been enlisted to test some of the creations of the society out on them.—JN I don’t ..read more

In Monday’s mailbag, I wrote about taking advantage of recurrent, seasonal events as the backdrop for your effects. This is an easy way to imbue them with a little more sense of “special-ness.” This is just simple supply and demand. If you only got a boner when the seasons changed, you would cherish every one. If, like me at 14, you have a boner 23 hours of the day—acting as either a tent pole or a kickstand when you tried to sleep at night—it would be meaningless at best, and annoying at worst. “I can do this anywhere, any time, with anybody,” is the opposite of a “magical” experience. Many o ..read more

It’s often said, “There are no bad tricks, only bad performers.” With your help, we’re going to put this notion to the test. I would like you to submit to me what you believe to be the worst magic release of all time. I will take all your nominations and we will put them in a single-elimination tournament over the course of a few weeks to crown one trick the worst of all time. Then we’ll take that trick and see if there’s some way to perform that trick in a way that makes it “good.” Depending on how many nominees I get for the worst trick of all time, this will go on for maybe 1-3 weeks. To st ..read more

If you and your other readers are planning to try out some haunted themed effects, I would recommend to do it on April 4th, which is the Chinese Memorial Day, but can be translated as tomb-sweeping day. There are a lot of rituals related to this Memorial Day. For example, in my province, we would put food in front of our deceased grandparents. We would then burn joss paper. After that, we were supposed to eat some of the food that we served to our ancestors because they are now blessed by our ancestors. This year is particularly special since it is on Thursday, April 4, 2024 (4th month, 4th d ..read more

This post is sort of related to last week’s post about acknowledging the reactions of your spectator and letting them affect you. That post was about making it clear to the spectator that you’re present and you’re tuned into them. And that what you’re doing is something you’re doing with them and for them, and not just AT them. Today I’m going to discuss a similar topic about spectator interaction. New magicians and bad magicians will have interactions that go like this. Magician: Let me ask you a question, do you believe that objects can be haunted? Spectator: I think so. I actually think the ..read more